Judge a man by his questions rather than by his answers

Questions are catalysts for change Why do ask we questions? Check progress Underline the learning journey Check for misconceptions Inspire curiosity and wonder Encourage students to think and ask questions Improve appropriateness of future lessons Questions are catalysts for change

What makes for effective questioning? The objectives of the lesson are clear Question can be understood by the audience Students understand the purpose of the question It will stimulate the whole group to actively think It requires a definite answers It supports students to have a better understanding of the course and how to maximise their potential.

Powerful questions Are agents that stimulates or precipitates a reaction, development, or change

Typicality, what’s going off in your class? How many questions do you ask in a typical lesson? What type of questions do you typically ask your students? How many questions do your students ask in a typical lesson and who usually asks them? What type of questions do you encourage your students to ask you, themselves and other students?

What’s the climate for questioning like in your classroom? How much wait time do I give students after different types of questioning? How do I respond when a students answer a question? What do I do when students do not respond to my questions in the way I expected? How do I deal with the situation when a student gives an incorrect response? What do I do to encourage quieter students to respond to my questions?

Practical questioning strategies

Know your class Ask the right questions, to the right students, at the right time Remember these change every lesson, and you have to be watching the class dynamics all the time

No hands up Keep them in the game Who wants to outline what they had for breakfast this morning? Put your hands up The moment I ask for hands I am allowing students to opt out of the Q&A process Who is in control of the learning process now? Keep them in the game

iPad e-boards Why is Usain Bolt not the saviour of athletics? Ask the question Wait View all students answers iPad can save their answers Practice putting the e-boards up with the students (then use stepped approach to spin up questions)

Increased wait time Most teachers wait less than a second for an answer 3 seconds for lower order questions 10 seconds for higher order ones

Ask a friend Empower a student who is struggling with a question, allow them to ask a friend Then get the class to suggest whether they are right or wrong, could be a e-board moment

Demand that students can’t use this as an answer to a question Keep them at it, don’t take no for an answer 9 times out of 10 they do know and they feel better for telling you and it re-enforces your message.

Don’t confuse this with addressing student misconceptions Embellishment Don’t confuse this with addressing student misconceptions

TPS

PPPB

Annoying infant why, why, why

Why do more men now use moisturiser in the morning than 20 years ago? Staged questioning Why do more men now use moisturiser in the morning than 20 years ago? Build a complex answer from the bottom through a series of ever more complex questions You could use an e-whiteboard question as a starting point don’t forget PPPB, you might want to throw in a bit of TPS here. A touch of annoying infant and a anti I don’t know policy helps, as does knowing your students

What are you going to do to become better at using questioning in your lessons?

Questioning and deep learning Good quality questioning supports this type of activity

Bloom

The quality of a question is not judged by its complexity but by the complexity of thinking it provokes